Up at seven, breakfast at eight, they have – aside of the normal offerings – really delicious cookies. We’ve been keeping an eye on the news, the storm Ciarán is expected to do its worst today, with high winds, strong gusts of wind and rain squalls. My mom was house sitting (or cat sitting, more correctly) and has secured the loose items in the garden at our home, but cannot get home (to her home) now because the wind has knocked a branch on the rail and it’s too windy to bike safely. France is expecting most trouble near the coast, but where we are right now it’s actually still quite sunny.
We have some time to kill, so on the way east we drop by the castle of Villandry. We’ve visited it a few times already, but we know you can buy a separate ticket just to visit the gardens and that’s a perfect short activity. We admire the lake with the swans, have a quick look at the elegant vegetable plots, but spend most time in the herb garden, looking for inspiration for our own projects at home. When we leave around eleven, I look on the weather radar and we seem to be driving eastward in a canyon of quiet in between the storm spots, though when we stop for a break and get out of the car, we can feel that the wind is indeed quite strong. We’re getting off lightly here, that’s sure.
In a practical sense, this is the end of the holiday. The next few days we’ll do a few stops in the Côtes du Bar and Reims regions, to pick up a year’s supply of champagne. It’s a luxury product, but prices are much more reasonable and the choice more varied if you make appointments to buy at the producers, on site. We’ve already contacted the suppliers, sent our orders up front for some of them, so now it’s a matter of gallivanting around the vineyards for the actual pick-ups, with the occasional sip of champagne.
Febe writes 